A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

8:33am - Snag a copy of The White Darkness (which just won a Printz) on my way to my desk. Deal with all the stuff newly piled on my desk (damaged audiobooks, preschool loan requests, etc.) (and by "deal with", I generally mean "sort into semi-organized piles to take care of later")

8:47am - Head into the story room to prep for Nursery Rhyme Time (twice monthly program for babies-23 months), set up felt board, practice felts and rhymes, read through books, grab some browsing books, make sure toys are clean

9:30am - First session of NRT (13 people), we do 10-15 minutes of stories, songs, and nursery rhyme felts and then we have 15 minutes of free play time so the kids (and caregivers) can interact

10:15 - Second session of NRT (13 people again)

10:45am - NRT cleanup

10:55am - Back at desk, check email, enter new preschool loan card in the binder, work on the audiobook order

11:58am - On the reference desk. We're generally slow at lunchtime. I refill our folk/fairy tale display, read picture books in preparation for next week's storytime planning meeting, and help one patron find videos about making a newspaper

1:00pm - Lunchtime! A couple of us walk down to the Italian deli down the street. Mmm.

1:50pm - Arrive back at the library, put stuff away

2:00pm - Attend a programming meeting. Librarians from YPS, Adult Services, and Circ meet with our graphic artist, the director, and the assistant director to discuss upcoming programs and the publicity for said programs

4:00pm - On the reference desk again. Here's a sampling of the questions I was asked:

- Can I check out a laptop?- Do you have "Baby Gingerbread Boy"? (Title was, as I suspected, Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett)- I need help with the computer.- Where are craft books?- Where are books on insects?- I need information about the dumbo octopus for a school report.

5:00pm - Clean off my desk (as best I can...) and it's time to go! A quick stop at the circulation desk to check out my (multitudes of) books and I'm headed home.

And that was one day in the life of a children's librarian. Every day is different, so look for more "Days in the Life" to come.

What I've Been Reading

Our leadership team at the library is reading this book for a team book discussion early in the new year. Cy Wakeman has a lot of insightful and relevant things to say about leaders helping their employees deal with realities (instead of...

The other day I was browsing Netflix, wondering what to watch and thought I just might watch Cosmos over again. Listening to this audiobook was a good substitute. Tyson does what he sets out to do here: boils down his massive, technical ...

This thriller set in Southern Indiana and written by actress Krysten Ritter definitely kept me at the edge of my seat. Something's wrong in Abby Williams's hometown of Barrens, Indiana. Her ecological legal team has been brought in to in...

Grace Hopper made amazing contributions to the field of computer science that helped develop computers as we use them today. This would make a super family read, making the subject accessible to young children, if parents are interested ...